Last month, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) to seek comments pertaining to e-liquid flavours’ regulations. In response to this, five public health experts sent a letter to FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb urging him to look at the bigger picture.

Last month, the FDA together with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched this consultation in order to gather feedback on how to best regulate flavours. Echoing what Gottlieb said days earlier, the agency said it aimed to limit flavours’ appeal to adolescents, whilst considering the role that they are having in helping adult smokers take the leap from smoking to vaping.

In response to this, Attorney General of Iowa Thomas Miller, and four Public Health experts amongst whom renowned anti-smoking activists Clive Bates and David Sweanor, sent a briefing and letter to Dr. Gottlieb “that form a chain of reasoning that connect flavors to harms or, more likely in reality, to public health benefits.” The briefing goes as follows: